Riffraff! Street rat! Scoundrel! Equity card! Disney's Aladdin will soon be following in the footsteps of Disney's Beauty and the Beast, Disney's The Lion King and Disney's Waiting for Godot by taking its place on the Great White Way. Details on the Broadway adaptation of Aladdin are being kept very hush-hush, but plans are in motion to move the show into the New Amsterdam Theater where fellow Disney cash cow Mary Poppins will celebrate its final performance on March 3rd. Or at least so says two Broadway theater executives who wish to remain anonymous. (Yo, Jafar and Iago — stop playing because we know it's you.) Disney has yet to comment.
A staged version of Disney's Aladdin has already done test runs in Seattle and St. Louis, but, according to the anonymous theater execs, it's unlikely that it will premiere on Broadway until 2014 because that's how long it takes to teach a carpet to fly. The show will continue to include the lyrics and music of Howard Ashman, Tim Rice and Alan Menken. No word on whether or not Full House Steve will return for the titular role
How many tickets are you preordering? I am going to get one for previews and another for every performance that follows until it completes its run and/or I die.
‘Mary Poppins' To Fly Off as ‘Aladdin' Lands on Broadway [NYT]
DISCUSSION
Disney's California Adventure had an Aladdin stage show that ran for quite sometime (perhaps it's still running) that was basically a full-length stage musical adaptation of the film. I was wondering when they were gonna take it on the road and why the Mouse was taking so long to do so.
And I hope they cut out the one original song they put in that show, which consisted of Jasmine singing about her being trapped like a bird in a cage. It might have been the actress' treacly singing, but it kinda sucked. Needs improvement or else put it on the cutting room floor.